A SkewTransform is useful for creating the illusion of three-dimensional depth in a two-dimensional object.

The local origin 0,0 for an object can be offset on a Canvas using Canvas.Left and Canvas.Top, but this does not count as a transform; the object retains its own local 0,0 in this case for transformation purposes.

The following illustration shows three examples of a SkewTransform applied to a Rectangle.

TextBlock using a SkewTransform

Transforms can alter the display of text in your application to create a decorative effect. The following illustration shows text skewed along the x-axis.

Text skewed along the x-axis

Note:

A typeface can simulate an italic style by shearing, or skewing, a glyph. However, a non-simulated italic typeface is typically designed to have a better visual appearance than a simulated italic typeface.

The following example uses a SkewTransform to skew text. A skew, also known as a shear, is a transformation that stretches the coordinate space in a non-uniform manner. In this example, the two text strings are skewed -30 degrees and 30 degrees along the x-coordinate.

<RectangleMouseLeftButtonDown="IncreaseSkew"Width="50"Height="50"Fill="RoyalBlue"><Rectangle.RenderTransform><!-- If you give the transform a name you can access
it easily from code. --><SkewTransformx:Name="mySkewTransform"/></Rectangle.RenderTransform></Rectangle>